Bounty Balls
INGREDIENTS:
-
4 tablespoons coconut paste
-
4 tablespoons honey
- 10 tablespoons desiccated coconut
- 1 bar dark chocolate
Buy It’s time for one of my sweet favourites, the recipe for bounty balls with yummy coconut spread. They’re great as an alternative to ready-made sweets and they’re super easy and quick to prepare.
Preparation
I slightly blended the coconut spread, honey and desiccated coconut. Then I formed balls and put them into the freezer for a few minutes. In the meantime I melted the chocolate over a water bath and dipped the balls in it. Next, I set them aside to cool. You can store them in the fridge, but they’re more likely to disappear in no time.
Two kinds of coconut, two different jobs
The recipe uses coconut twice and the two are not interchangeable. The spread is ground coconut turned to a paste, so it brings the fat and it is the only thing binding the filling. The desiccated coconut is dry and brings the texture and the bulk.
That is why the proportion is four tablespoons of spread to ten of desiccated. Push the desiccated higher and the mixture crumbles and will not roll; push the spread higher and you get a soft paste that never firms up enough to dip. If your batch crumbles, a spoonful more spread fixes it, not more honey.
“Slightly blended” is the instruction to follow
The filling is blended only briefly, and that is deliberate. Run the processor longer and the desiccated coconut gives up its own oil, the mixture turns wet and greasy, and the pieces that should give a bounty its characteristic shredded bite disappear into a smooth paste.
A few pulses until it holds together when squeezed is all it needs. You are mixing, not milling.
The freezer is what makes dipping possible
Those few minutes in the freezer are not about setting the sweets, they are about making the next step work at all. A room-temperature ball put into melted chocolate softens, loses its shape and starts shedding coconut into the bowl, which then has to be thrown away.
Cold and firm, it takes the chocolate in one dip, and the coating sets on contact because the ball is colder than the chocolate. Ten minutes in the freezer is enough for a small batch, and take them out a few at a time rather than all at once.
Dipping without a mess
Melt the chocolate over simmering rather than boiling water, keeping the bowl clear of the water, and take it off the heat while the last pieces are still melting. Chocolate that is too hot runs straight off a cold ball and pools underneath; chocolate too thick sits in lumps.
Drop one ball in at a time, lift it out on a fork, and tap the fork on the rim of the bowl to let the excess run back. Set them on baking paper, not on a plate, because the chocolate glues itself to china. Whatever runs off and pools at the base is what makes the flat foot you can see in the photo, and tapping the fork is what keeps it small.
Sweetness, chocolate and keeping
Four tablespoons of honey against a whole bar of dark chocolate puts these on the sweet side of the coconut and the bitter side of the coating. If you use chocolate above 70 per cent, taste the filling before rolling, since the contrast gets sharp.
They keep two weeks in a closed container in the fridge and freeze for three months. Eat them cool: the coconut spread softens at room temperature and the filling loses its bite within about twenty minutes. For a version shaped into bars with a poured cocoa glaze instead of dipped chocolate, there is homemade bounty bars on the blog. And if you would rather have snacks like these planned into the week along with your meals, that is what the Diet & Training by Ann app does.
Bounty balls
Ingredients
Method
- Blend the coconut spread, honey and desiccated coconut briefly, just until the mixture holds together when squeezed.
- Form balls and put them into the freezer for about 10 minutes.
- Melt the chocolate over simmering water, keeping the bowl clear of the water.
- Dip the cold balls one at a time, lift each out on a fork and tap the fork on the rim to let the excess run back.
- Set them on baking paper and leave them to cool.
Notes
Frequently asked questions
They do different jobs. The spread is ground coconut turned to a paste, so it brings the fat and it is the only thing binding the filling, while the desiccated coconut is dry and brings the texture and bulk. That is why the proportion is four tablespoons of spread to ten of desiccated.
Add a spoonful more coconut spread, not more honey. Crumbling means there is not enough fat to bind the dry coconut, and extra honey only makes the filling sweeter and stickier without holding it together.
Run the processor longer and the desiccated coconut gives up its own oil, so the mixture turns wet and greasy and the shredded bite that makes a bounty disappears into a smooth paste. A few pulses until it holds when squeezed is enough.
A room-temperature ball softens in melted chocolate, loses its shape and sheds coconut into the bowl. Cold and firm, it takes the chocolate in one dip and the coating sets on contact. Ten minutes is enough, and take them out a few at a time.
Melt the chocolate over simmering rather than boiling water and take it off the heat while the last pieces are still melting. Dip one ball at a time, lift it out on a fork and tap the fork on the rim so the excess runs back, then set them on baking paper rather than a plate. Snacks like these come planned into the week alongside your meals in the Diet & Training by Ann app.
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